By James Windell
Why did Sgt. Pat Carlotto file a lawsuit against the City of South Haven?
Was it just sour grapes because he was passed over for the position of Chief of the South Haven Police Department? Is he looking to replace Chief Adam DeBoer?
These are a few of the questions being asked in the wake of a lawsuit that Carlotto filed in late November 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. In the suit, Carlotto claims that he was a target of retaliation and discriminatory treatment by being passed over for the permanent position of chief.
While no one familiar with the suit is willing to go on record and be identified, well-placed and knowledgeable sources say that Carlotto only reluctantly filed the lawsuit in order to bring to the public’s attention serious flaws in the hiring and promotion system in South Haven.
Carlotto, a 25-year veteran of the South Haven Police Department, was appointed interim police chief after Chief Natalie Thompson retired in September 2024. He held the role until Kevin Swope was hired in January 2025. After Chief Swope resigned just one month into his tenure, Carlotto was again named interim chief. He stepped in to lead the department while the City resumed its search for a permanent replacement.
He served in that role until Dennis Honholt began serving as Chief on April 1, 2025. Honholt resigned a month later, but no interim police chief was named immediately. Sgt. Adam DeBoer was appointed interim chief near the end of April 2025 and was in that position until recently being promoted to Chief.
In his suit, Carlotto states that he has qualifications, credentials, and experience that far exceeded those of the persons the City ended up hiring as its chief of police.
“This is not an Adam DeBoer versus Pat Carlotto issue,” said an individual who is familiar with Carlotto and the South Haven Police Department. “DeBoer is a good guy. This is about the system.”
Carlotto did not want to sue the City of South Haven, an anonymous source contends. “People will say, ‘Oh, he didn’t get to be chief so now he’s suing.’ No, it’s not about that. Maybe he should have been selected as chief, but it’s the process that is the problem. That’s why he sued.”
The problem, according to those with information related to the process of selecting chiefs since Thompson retired, is that the process used by the City to select a new chief led to poor choices. This was the case, some people argue, in terms of the selection of Dennis Honholt, the person who only lasted a month before he resigned.
“It was said that City didn’t know about Honholt,” a source said, “but that is a lie. They knew everything about him He was not even a contender and yet they selected him. Then, they lied about it. That’s the thing that frustrates cops the most; that they lied.”
Sources say that the promotion process was an additional aspect of the problem. Despite the popularity of Carlotto and public demonstrations in support of him, this – and Carlotto’s qualifications – were ignored by the City when they hired Honholt.
Just after Honholt was hired to be Chief in April 2025, an anonymous source told the Beacon that Honholt was not qualified to lead the police department. “If you look closely at his resume, there are problems,” the source said. “I don’t know what the City Manager was thinking. I don’t know why she pushed Honholt through when there were more qualified candidates.”
The source went on to report that individuals within the police department brought their concerns before city officials about Honholt’s deficiencies.
Also, in an interview with the Beacon in March, 2025, Bishop Joe Wilkins, pastor of Resurrection Life Ministries Church, said that he and other residents he’s talked to wanted the process of selecting a new police chief to be more transparent.
“I along with several other faith leaders on the southside of Ward One were involved in the interviewing process before,” Wilkins said. “We and other stakeholders were involved in the process of selecting, finalizing and narrowing down the list of candidates,” he said referring to the selection of Natalie Thompson as chief in 2016. “But this time, it appears that community stakeholders, at least when it comes to faith-based leaders, have not been involved. They are just allowing a third party to do this.”
Wilkins went on to say that just relying on the Michigan Municipal League to do the narrowing down of candidates is not the best way of coming up with a short list of candidates for the position. The Michigan Municipal League “doesn’t know the history of this city. They don’t know what it took for us to get this point. They don’t know the work that Chief Thompson put in,” Wilkins explained.
City Manager Kate Hosier said in an interview in March 2025 that when they hired Thompson in 2016, “There was a portion of that process where stakeholders from the community were invited to come and be a part of that process. I see that happening again this time.”
With the filing of Carlotto’s lawsuit, some have speculated that his lawsuit would cause tension and dissension within the police department. Those with knowledge of the mood in the South Haven Police Department state that it has not affected the atmosphere or the morale of the department
